I’m sorry.
No words come back from her, but there’s something. Wry amusement. An image pops into my head, of her punching my shoulder playfully, and telling me to shut up and get on with things.
I’m smiling when I open my eyes.
Siri kneels over me. I don’t remember her pulling me over the chasm’s lip, but my head rests in her lap. Her eyes are serious, weary beyond measure, but still banked with such flame that I rue anyone who crosses her.
Her bond falls away, too, slower than Emeree’s, and one final pump of strength floods me. “Thank you,” I whisper in a voice that doesn’t seem quite my own.
She grunts. “Won’t be able to do that for a long time, so try not to get yourself killed again.” Her words are gruff, but there’s something beneath them. Admiration, desire. I try to laugh, can’t.
She’s crazy.
Then again, jumping off a fucking cliff before she fully reformed was pretty insane, too. Maybe that’s why I can see what I see in her eyes as she probes me with ungentle hands.
“Anything broken?”
I sit, choke back a moan. “Shoulder,” I cough. Whatever I did to it when the rope snapped taut, it was bad enough that their magical healing didn’t repair it.
She helps me up, and then wraps her hands around the top of my arm, feeling, gripping almost roughly. I moan at the pain of it, fresh tears springing to my eyes.
Siri Grunts. “Dislocated. Hold still.” She looks me in the eyes, solemn. “This will hurt. A lot.” Her gaze narrows, and she nods. “You will take it.”
I’m about to thank her for her vote of confidence, but the words never make it past my lips. She wrenches, hard, and for the briefest moment the pain is so incredible, so all consuming, that nothing else exists. My shoulder pops audibly, bone grinding on bone, and animal instinct kicks in. I raise my other hand to push her away, fight her off, anything to make this end.
And then it’s over. The agony fades to a dull ache as Siri steps back. “Better,” she says.
I rotate my arm, wincing. “Yes. Gods damn. If I ever try something like that again, you have my permission to let me fall. Put me out of my misery.”
She frowned, not the response I expected after a joke. “You showed courage. Will to live, no matter what.” Her arm extends, and I take it in a warrior’s salute. “You are worthy of the bond.”
“Yes. Well.” I look to the opposite lip of the chasm, which still seethes with thousands of tiny spiders. “Looks like they aren’t giving up.”
Something’s wrong. I squint, to the far wall, where the opening of the cave we fled from yawns like a screaming mouth. The glow of the algae is muted, pulsing, along the walls and ceiling. Almost like…
“Shit,” I say, backing away. “Above us.”
Siri follows my gaze, watches as hundreds of them pour across the walls, the ceiling. We’ve tarried too long, and they’re almost above us. Even as I have the thought, one releases above the chasm, drifting toward us on silk so think I can see it in the dull light.
Siri sighs and hefts her axe and pack, starting off. “Better not be any more broken bridges,” she huffs.
I pull even with her. The light is strange, its azure glow washing away detail. Even so, Siri looks terrible, almost drained, and her once powerful strides are stilted, almost a shamble.
She doesn’t have much left. The thought guts me...Both what she gave to save me, and the fact that she can be beaten down, exhausted. She’s a force of nature, like a hurricane or a mountain, and seeing her stagger along is sobering.
I’ll get us out. I’ll get us all out of here. One way or another.
At the far edge of the cavern, the way narrows again. There’s only one exit, and we dash through, once again chased by the sound of chittering death.
This time, the algae extends into the tunnel, which is good, because we don’t have time to light a new torch. The walls are rougher than before, not carved smooth, and almost immediately we have to climb over a small rockfall where part of the ceiling’s collapsed. Though there are still symbols peppering the walls, they’re distinctly different than those from the first passage. Mystery on top of mystery, none of which I have time to contemplate.
Siri takes the lead, and I pull my bow, ready to turn and fight if I must. I’m not sure even magically exploding arrows will make much of a difference, but what other choice do I have?
We climb another pile of rocks and small boulders, so high and close the ceiling that Siri barely squeezes through. The sight of her pinched between the pile and the ceiling would be ridiculously distracting in any other circumstances, but I can hear the spiderlings not far behind us, and it’s hard to fight blind panic.
I scramble up after her, shimmying into the crack. Pebbles fall from the roof of the cave, from the hole that the pile fell from, and there’s an ominous crack.
No way, screw that. After everything I’ve been through, I’m not about to let myself be crushed by a pile of rock. I push through faster, cursing.
“Faster,” Siri says, reaching for me. She catches the string of my outstretched bow, held before me, and tugs. It’s caught between us, drawing, and instantly, an arrow of light forms, held between our trembling hands.
Aimed directly at my head.
“Wait!” Siri freezes, unmoving as the stone around her, and I thank Cailleach for battle instincts that keep her from panic. I take a deep breath, staring at shimmering death for a long moment. “Okay, easy. Don’t let go of the string, and slowly release the pressure.”
Siri grunts her assent, and with glacial precision, brings her hand closer to mine. My grip is slick with sweat and I’m shaking, scared out of my fucking mind, but I school myself to stillness.
As are hands draw together, the arrow dissipates, tiny motes of light winking out like azure fireflies. I take a long, shuddering breath, then scramble through the crack, aided my Siri yanking me through by the wrists.
I straighten, brush myself off. For a moment the only sounds are our heavy gasps and the advancing wave of spiders. They’re close.
“Come, we must not tarry now,” Siri says. Her dusky skin is pale as death, and even at rest her breathing is ragged. I’m in better shape, but not by much. Using the gifts over and over, almost dying, being healed… It’s left me in shambles. We can’t go on like this. Who knows how long this tunnel is?
Siri moves to stumble off, but my hand on her shoulder halts her. “Wait.” An idea, half formed, creeps into my scrambled mind.
“No time,” she grunts. “No time to rest.”
“Not that.” I give her a gentle shove, eyeing the ceiling around where we came through. “I’m going to try something. Head down the tunnel a ways.”
“Not going to leave you,” she says, face dire. “If you die and I get stuck in this tunnel for a thousand years, I’ll haunt you in the afterlife.”
“For a sec, I thought you were worried about me,” I wink, shoving her again. “Now get.”
She does, moving around a curve a ways further. I follow a few paces, turn, facing the rockfall.
The spiders are so close, I can hear their individual legs, clicking like nails against glass.
This better work.
I raise my pilfered bow, drawing as far as tired muscles will let me. As I pull further and further, the glimmering arrow that springs to life grows in intensity, becoming more brilliant in the dim tunnel. The crackles of lightning that race along its surface arc further, and one even impacts my arm, where it absorbs, leaving a faint sting.
My arms tremble as I take aim, adjusting my footing. One massive boulder, at least as big as a horse, hangs almost loose from the ceiling. There. That’s the spot.
They’re at the opposite side of the pile. I can hear it in the way the sound changes, how their legs rattle against loose pebbles. It must be now.
Let’s see if they can take a godsdamned avalanche of stone.
I loose, then turn to run.
I don’t see the arrow�
��s impact, but the sound of the detonation fills the tunnel, deafening. It sounds like a mountain collapsing, like thunder a yard away. My mad scream is lost in the tumult as bits of stone explode past me, followed closely by dust so thick the tunnel ahead disappears. A stone as large as my first impacts my shoulder, spinning me like a top, and I groan, falling.
I curl up, shielding my head, praying to Cailleach amidst the maelstrom. I can hear rock falling, falling, somewhere distant behind me, and chips still fly screaming past me. Some bounce off my leathers, and something larger hurtles just above me, striking my back hard enough to make me cry out before it bounces deeper into the tunnel.
This is it. I’ve made a terrible mistake. The thought echoes in my mind as I lay curled, helpless. I could be dead any moment, and I’d never see it coming. I might survive. There’s a strange sort of lassitude, when all control over your own survival is robbed of you, that settles over me like a blanket. Despite the roar behind me, the hurtling death around me, I’m strangely calm.
What is, is.
And then, it’s over. The sound of tons of rock settling, shifting, trails off to the low growl of the earth settling, of the pile shifting. The air settles as I sit up, coughing, my lungs filled with dust. I hurt, everywhere, and I can barely breathe.
But I’m alive.
I stand, whooping, just as Siri comes back up the tunnel. Her expression is furious, worried, but I don’t give her time to speak. I grab her by her chest piece and throw her against the wall, swallowing her protest as my lips meet hers.
She tastes like sweat and blood and every part of me feels like I’ve been beaten and then beaten again, but I don’t care. I’m fucking alive. She’s stiff for only a moment before she melts into my embrace, and when she returns my kiss, it’s as hungry as I feel. Her teeth find my lip and she bites hard enough to draw blood, and I laugh at the pain, the pleasure as my tongue slips deep into her mouth.
We’re like that for long moments, not speaking, just devouring each other. Her fingers find my leathers and yank them down with a savage tug that severs one of the ties. My cock springs free and I gasp at the contrast of its heat and the chill air.
Emeree practically dances at my back, her bond pulsing with joy and contentment. And a bit of jealousy, at being left out.
I have Siri’s buckles undone almost as quickly, and her armor falls, rattling against dark stone as it goes. Our lips roam, over neck and jaw and ear, before journeying back across blood and sweat slicked skin to find each other’s.
She’s already so wet; my hand discovers this as she moans into my mouth. She takes my cock at the base, encircling it with her finger and thumb, and tugs, upward, toward her heat.
I don’t fight her. I need her, want to consume her, to lose myself in her bond and body, in the overwhelming joy of surviving together.
She’s taller than me, and the angle is perfect. I lean up, into her, and slide deep in one long thrust.
Siri grunts, low and guttural, into my ear. “Yes,” she grunts.
“Siri…” I moan, taking in her slow strokes.
“Yes,” she repeats. “This is what it is, to fight, to live. To triumph.”
I fuck her harder, faster, driving her back against the stone. I rest my face against her breastbone as I drive into her, over and over, and her animal sounds match my own. Her sweat is salty, fresh, slick against my fingers and tongue.
Powerful fingers till my hair, pull me closer, and the heat of her pussy is unbearable. I’m already close, so close, but I don’t slow.
Neither does she.
At the last moment, I seize our bond. It pulses in time with my thrusts, with her ragged gasps. I know I shouldn’t use it, not so soon, not now, but I can’t help myself.
I tug, and as her strength floods me, I lift her, hands braced under her thighs. Her legs wrap me like a vice, her walls tighten, and I cum, crying out. I fill her with my seed as she fills me with her gift.
We stay like that long moments, her pinned to the wall, panting together. Her gift suffuses me, still, but I don’t release, not yet. She’s open to me, fully, her bond a conduit that flows back and forth so powerfully I can’t let it go even if I wanted to.
Pleasure, satisfaction, ferocity. All that she is inside of me, and all that I am is laid bare to her.
It wasn’t like this, before. With Emeree or Siri. I’m changing, the closer I get to them. The stronger our bonds grow.
What am I becoming?
Slowly, the connection fades, and her gift slips from me like water through a sieve. I let her down slowly, pulling my head back, but I’m still deep inside her.
A dark trickle of my blood stains her lip, and she licks it clean, obscenely slow. I grin, give her one last nip before stepping back with a gasp.
My skin prickles. Something...Without thought, I turn, stomp my foot, and am rewarded with a crunch and a squeal. A last spiderling, half crushed, that somehow made it past the rockslide, put out of its misery by my boot.
Finally, Siri speaks. “I was right. You are crazy.” Her smile is wolfish. “Emeree was right about you.”
“Oh, what did she say?” I ask.
“Lots of things.” Siri smiles cryptically and buckles her armor back on.
I follow suit, and when I’m done, Siri hands me a waterskin as we set off. I gulp down a few grateful sips, can taste her lips on it. Our pace is slower, now that we’re not being chased by thousands of tiny, venom filled mandibles. Siri moves steadily, but I can see the strain on her. She needs to revert into her axe, to repair, but I know if I suggest it, she’ll refuse.
We pass a shard of rock as long as my torso. It’s shaped like a knife blade and looks as sharp. There’s a long skid in the dust, and I realized it came to rest here only moments before. Thrown over my head as I crouched, waiting for the slide to end?
“Gods, that would have cut me in half,” I murmur, awestruck.
“I’m glad that it didn’t,” Siri says, poking me in the rear with the haft of her axe.
We push on, close, not speaking. The tunnel widens and starts to climb, and I thank the gods, dare hope that we’re almost out. We don’t speak, just take comfort in each other’s closeness.
I still feel charged, alive in a way that I never have before. I’ve almost died more times than I can count since all this began, but never like this. I’ve never stood under Ora’s judgement, powerless, ready to live or die depending on her whims.
And she’s declined my soul. I still breathe. I’m still here for Briet and Keldan. Still fighting alongside these incredible women.
I’m deep below the surface of Glaerhanig, beaten and half dead, and I’m content. Happy even. For the first time in a long time. Saving my family feels possible, real, and no obstacle will stop us.
Us.
Siri senses something of this, peeks at me over her shoulder. My smile is the only answer to her quizzical look.
“Heating up,” she says, voice strained.
She’s right. I was lost enough in my reverie that I didn’t notice. Fat drops of sweat bead on my skin, tracing paths through dust and blood. Siri's bronzed skin is slick and wet, and she switches her grip on the axe repeatedly, raising hands to leave dark streaks of perspiration on the walls as she tries to dry her palms in vain.
Breathing comes harder, and it’s hot enough that I feel like I’m being slowly cooked. The air smells horrible, like sulfur and rot. What the hells is going on?
“You have to be kidding,” Siri says, slumping ahead of me.
I push past her and see why. “Shit.”
The path widens further ahead, making room for a pond of black, viscous, boiling liquid. It’s dark as ink, tarlike, so hot that the air above it shimmers and dances in the algae’s glow. The walls ahead glow orange, superheated, and the air is so thick with heat that I can barely breathe.
But that isn’t the worst part. Fat bubbles of rise and burst at the pond’s dark surface, and when they do, thick blobs of boiling liquid fly into
the air. Some plop back down into the pond, but others, many others, spray across the only path through the room. It’s not a constant shower, but it consistent enough to block our paths, if we don’t want to boil alive in our armor. The shower of black streaks and pellets is thick enough that there’s no way through.
“What is it?” I’ve never seen, or heard, about anything like this in nature.
Siri slides down the wall, taking a breath. “Magic waste,” she bites out. “Probably a battle, long ago, somewhere above us at the surface. Certain magics take the life of the world as fuel, and this is what’s left.”
“Gods,” I whisper. “There’s so much.”
“Would have taken someone of incredible power to do this. And for it to last this long? This happened before the Sirens existed, or we would have heard about it.” Her words cut the air, as hot as the slag before us. She’s pissed.
I don’t blame her. Everything we’ve been through, and now we roast to death in here?
No way. There must be a way through.
I pull something from my pack, the first thing I lay my hand on. A wooden torch, the end wrapped with cord and fuel. I move ahead gingerly, staying out of range of the spray, and then toss the torch into the path we’ll have to run if we want to get out of here.
It takes only moment for a fat glob to strike the torch. It bursts into flames instantly, igniting like a tiny sun. It chars to ash before I have time to gasp, and I stumble back even as another, tiny glob fires further than the rest, landing next to my booted foot.
Stumbling back, I right myself, shaking my head. I’d thought that we might take a few hits as we rush through, but screw that. We’d fry.
Asha offer me a drink as I settle beside her. We drink deeply, draining it. If we get out, we’ll find more. If we’re stuck here…
“I could throw you through it,” I say, hating the words, already know what she’ll say.
“While you remain here to die?”
“You could go for help. We might be close to the surface.”
Steel Sirens Page 25